Age is just a number
by casualty1fan
Summary: This is a one shot about Zoe on her fortieth birthday How will she feel? How will max feel? What will the rest of the staff think? Please review and tell me what you think:)


This is an idea I recently had about Zoe on her fortieth birthday, so please review and enjoy

And if you are on twitter tweet #bringbacknickjordan

Zoe woke up to the sound of her phone alarm ringing, Zoe groaned as the bright screen hit her eyes, today was her birthday and for once she didn't want to party cause she was 40 today.

Zoe was fed up of partying cause that's all she seemed to do, she never done the whole get married and have kids thing it was always one night stands and just live for the moment and don't think about the consequences further down the line.

Once zoe's eyes adjusted to the light on her phone zoe realized that she had 3 text messages, one from Charlie, on from Linda and one from Tess all wishing her a happy birthday cause zoe being zoe hadn't told anyone else that it was her birthday cause this year unlike every other year zoe was going to get drunk at home and not go partying with Linda.

Zoe got up and dressed herself in her usual work clothes, a dark blue, tight dress with black heels.

20 minutes later Zoe arrived in her usual parking space at her usual time, everything was a complete routine not like it used to be, partying every night, waking up every morning with someone different in your bed and never knowing what time you will arrive at for work.

Everything had changed when Zoe became clinical lead, she had to change her mindset as well and there was suddenly good bye party Zoe and hello professional Zoe who was hardly ever late and was a brilliant doctor.

Zoe got out of her car thinking about how the old Zoe Hanna had slept with moat of the hospital and about how the old zoe Hanna was always late and finally about how the old zoe Hanna had always had nick Jordan.

The only thing that tamed Zoe momentarily out of her wild phases were men, men she loved and cared about like nick or matt.

Zoe was brought out of her thoughts when she felt someone walk beside her, it was Tess who had arrived at the same time as her.

"Hi" said Tess

Zoe never answered so Tess waved her hand in front of Zoe's face which seemed to bring her out of her daze.

"Hello zoe" said Tess "are you ok?"

"Oh em, just thinking" said Zoe

"About what?" said Tess

"Oh nothing, I am just being silly" said Zoe who was trying to convince herself more than Tess

Tess and Zoe walked inside like it was a normal Wednesday morning, Charlie was at the desk like usual waiting to talk to them and counting the days Zoe had managed to have sober shifts.

"Here comes the birthday girl" said Charlie

Zoe and Tess walked over to the reception desk knowing that it would seem odd if they avoided it.

"Birthday girl?" said Louise

"Zoe it's your birthday today?" said noel

Zoe put an unconvincing smile on and nodded

"So what are you doing?" said Louise

"I don't know" said zoe "probably nothing"

"Zoe this is a big birthday, you can't just do nothing" said Tess who soon realized what she had let slip

"Why you 50?" said noel laughing

"Not funny" said Zoe

"40?" said Louise who secretly didn't want Zoe to answer

As soon as Zoe heard this she looked to the ground and back up again which signaled that Louise was right.

"Really" said Charlie who Zoe had managed to conceal her age from

"Yep" said Zoe before walking off to her office

As soon as zoe stepped into her office she noticed that there was no Connie and then remembered that it was her day off which was like a birthday present to zoe as she was once again reminded of the piece she had in her office before Connie came.

Zoe was in her office nearly an hour before anyone disturbed her and that hour had mostly been spent staring at the pictures of her and matt, nick and Linda, her happy days when she was glad to be single but maybe that's because she was younger back then.

A man came into Zoe's office, she didn't recognize him but he was from a company that delivers flowers, the man left the flowers down on zoes desk and left.

Zoe smiled when she saw them wondering who else had remembered her birthday because it sounds unbelievable but Zoe couldn't even remember telling nick or matt when her birthday was, she couldn't even remember telling them her age.

Zoe picked up the white card that lay ontop of the flowers and read it as curiosity got the better of her.

"To the most beautiful woman on her birthday" said the card

Zoe smiled and wondered who it was from then she opened her drawer and lifted out another white card that had come with flowers before, zoe still couldn't figure out who they were from but it was the same handwriting on both cards so she decided to show noel the card that said Dr Hanna on it as she knew that noel was one of the biggest gossipers in the hospital and that once there was even a chance of a romance it would be ruined by the gossip that was spread.

"Noel, do you recognize this hand writing?" said Zoe

"Em yes" said noel "why?"

"Just tell me" said Zoe

"Max" said noel

Zoe smiled and knew that the most likely place for max to be at this time was outside smoking, he was a lot younger than her but for the first time in months he made zoe feel happy and zoe couldn't forget what he had said to her when they first met.

Zoe walked outside and lent against the wall of the hospital beside max who to her surprise wasn't smoking but just standing outside.

"Thank you" she whispered in his ear

Max immediately smiled and realized that he had been busted

"No problem" said max

"I am sure louse and noel have told you along with the whole hospital what age I am" said Zoe who now had her back against the hospital wall

Max smiled and stood in front of Zoe then leaned down and kissed her and to his surprise Zoe responded.

From then on every time max kissed Zoe it would remind Zoe of their first kiss and made her realize about how much one kiss could change everything and about how much one kiss made her feel loved once again.


End file.
